meiosis

Etymology

From Ancient Greek μείωσις (meíōsis, “a lessening”), from μειόω (meióō, “I lessen”), from μείων (meíōn, “less”). And, for the biological sense: Coined by British biologists John Bretland Farmer John Edmund Sharrock Moore in 1905 as maiosis in a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science, with the spelling corrected on etymological grounds later that year.

noun

1. (countable, uncountable, rhetoric) A figure of speech whereby something is made to seem smaller or less important than it actually is.
   I knew, with one of those secret knowledges that can exist between two people, that her suicide was a direct result of my having told her of my own attempt – I had told it with a curt meiosis that was meant to conceal depths; and she had called my bluff one final time. 1965, John Fowles, The Magus
2. (usually uncountable, cytology) Cell division of a diploid cell into four haploid cells, which develop to produce gametes.
   Meronyms: prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, reduction division, equation division